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‘Purge surge’: Obama fires another commander

WASHINGTON – After multiple top generals described to WND what they regard as a full-scale “purge” of the U.S. military by the Obama administration, the commander of U.S. Army Garrison Japan was summarily relieved of duty and his civilian deputy reassigned, pending a “misconduct” investigation.

Nine generals and flag officers have been relieved of duty under Obama just this year – widely viewed as an extraordinary number – and several sources put the total number of senior officers purged during the five years of the Obama administration as close to 200.

In response, prominent retired generals – ranging from Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News senior military analyst, to Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a founder of the Army’s elite Delta Force, to Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. Patrick Henry Brady – have all gone on the record with WND, characterizing Obama’s actions as nothing less than an all-out attack on America’s armed forces.

According to U.S. Army Japan, Col. Eric Tilley was suspended from his job by Maj. Gen. James C. Boozer Sr., commander of U.S. Army Japan and I Corps (Forward) for a “lack of confidence” based on the results of an inquiry.

A spokesman for U.S. Army Japan, Maj. Kevin Toner, would not elaborate on what prompted a “lack of confidence,” saying it would be “inappropriate to make public the allegations because the investigation did not lead to findings of criminal misconduct.”

Tilley is to be replaced by Col. Joy Curriera.

Tilley’s dismissal is only the latest in what retired Navy Capt. Joseph John refers to as a “bigger picture” in which some “135 senior officers have been purged.”

“The ‘bigger picture,’” John told WND, “is that the U.S. Armed Forces have been under relentless attack by the occupant of the Oval Office for five years.”

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In an email to WND, John outlined what he termed “a very few of the most egregious” aspects of Obama’s “attack” on the military over the past five years.

He referred specifically to the Rules of Engagement in combat that were put in place after Obama took office, asserting that the changes resulted in very high casualty rates in Afghanistan, including the loss of 17 members of SEAL Team 6 in one incident.

“The Rules of Engagement precluded the use of suppression fire at a landing zone,” John said.

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He also cited military chaplains’ being prohibited from reading letters in the pulpit from their cardinals during Sunday services as a restriction of freedom of religion.

These and other “social experiments,” he said, have constituted “a massive assault to restructure the military mindset, destroyed unit cohesion, unit morale and is negatively affecting combat effectiveness.”

John also referred to major cuts in the military budget that resulted in, for one example, restricting as many as seven aircraft carriers to port, “leaving them open to another Pearl Harbor-type of attack.”

Physical fitness qualifications for “tip of the spear units” such as the Rangers, SEALs, Green Berets and combat infantry are being downgraded, he said, so “women can be placed into those units.” Likewise, he added, “women have been assigned to submarines and ships resulting in relationships at sea that have broken up military families.”

Some senior enlisted personnel and commanding officers in the midst of six-month deployments, he said, have been removed because they got involved with the opposite sex, which degrades the ships’ battle readiness.

John sums up this way: “The net result of the occupant of the Oval Office’s new policies set for the U.S. armed forces changed and enforced by his civilian appointees at DOD continues to degrade the most effective military organization ever created.”